Embodiments of the present invention exemplarily described herein relate generally to apparatuses and methods for handling target material ejected or otherwise generated from a laser ablation site of a target (e.g., the form of particles and/or vapor). More particularly, embodiments of the present invention relate to apparatuses and methods for efficiently capturing target material, for efficiently transporting a sample containing the target material and for efficiently injecting a sample containing the target material into a sample preparation system. Embodiments of the present invention exemplarily described herein also relate generally to an apparatus for handling a target within a sample chamber. More particularly, embodiments of the present invention relate to apparatuses and methods for adjusting the position of a target holder with reduced lag and motion hysteresis.
Laser ablation Inductively Coupled Plasma Mass Spectrometry (LA-ICP-MS) or Laser ablation Inductively Coupled Plasma Optical Emission Spectrometry (LA-ICP-OES) techniques can be used to analyze the composition of a target (e.g., a solid or liquid target material). Often, a sample of the target is provided to an analysis system in the form of an aerosol (i.e., a suspension of solid and possibly liquid particles and/or vapor in a carrier gas, such as helium gas). The sample is typically produced by arranging the target within a laser ablation chamber, introducing a flow of a carrier gas within the chamber, and ablating a portion of the target with one or more laser pulses to generate a plume containing particles and/or vapor ejected or otherwise generated from the target (hereinafter referred to as “target material”), suspended within the carrier gas. Entrained within the flowing carrier gas, the target material is transported to an analysis system via a transport conduit to an ICP torch where it is ionized. A plasma containing the ionized particles and/or vapor is then analyzed by an analysis system such as an MS or OES system.
Conventional techniques such as LA-ICP-MS and LA-ICP-OES, however, are undesirably slow to carry out high-resolution compositional analysis (i.e., “imaging”) of a target within a reasonable time frame. For example, current techniques undesirably take up to about 278 hours to image an area of 100 mm2 at a pixel resolution of 10 μm. In addition, current techniques such as LA-ICP-MS and LA-ICP-OES are also not sensitive enough for high-resolution imaging or analysis of micron-sized and sub-micron side particles (e.g., nanoparticles). Example embodiments disclosed herein address these and other problems associated with conventional compositional analysis techniques.